Wordle Postgame Report, weekend CATCH up, December 2-4
GAMES OF SKILL AND CHANCE DEP'T.
The Wordle Postgame Report is a brief analysis of a game of Wordle, the five-letter-word guessing game now owned by the New York Times. If you do not play Wordle, Indignity encourages you to please skip this item. The existence of the Wordle Postgame Report does not constitute an endorsement of playing Wordle, not playing Wordle, or of the New York Times.
December 2, CHAFE, 3/6
I DON’T KNOW if I was consciously thinking of how the kitchen garbage had ripened overnight but the starter word that came up was ACRID. Yellow A, yellow C. One of the children took the bag down. I considered beginning the next guess with CA- but every word I could conjure without much effort (CAPER...CATER...) needed the already-eliminated R. So CHA-, instead. Nice common letters: CHASE. All green except the S. It should have been an F. Of couse it should have been the F. Wordle had picked a much better word than I had, and it was irritating to know that.
December 3, TORSO, 3/6
AN OPENING POKE with SPEAR drew two yellow letters, on the S and the R. ROSIN seemed too specialized to guess, but FROST crystallized the results: yellow R, yellow O, green S, yellow T. It resolved itself into TORSO before my eyes. Solid green in the midsection of the grid.
December 4, ADORE, 4/6
WHAT MAKES SOMETHING a Wordle spoiler? As soon as I looked at my Twitter feed, I saw Bomani Jones had tweeted out a 1/6 victory. Possibly—it was Twitter—this was a goof on something. If it was information, though, it was already in my Wordle-solving circuits, before I could do anything about it. Usually, on the unfortunate occasions where someone says something that refers to the Wordle result, I am able to tune it out, to blank my mind into what feels like the state I would have been in without the knowledge. This fact, though, was so basic it had crashed through my defensive ignorance. What was the fact, even? Formally, all those five green squares said was that today's Wordle answer was a five-letter word. But (if it wasn't a goof) it couldn't help saying more than that. It was a first guess. A first guess, from most people, is generally not going to have any rareties in it. Certainly no repeats. The answer would have five different common letters in it. Unless it was a goof! Or unless Bomani Jones is a weird Wordle player. But there I was. Without seeing the tweet, was today a day I would have tried something unusual in the opening word, or not? If I chose to play an uncommon letter, I'd still be reacting to the knowledge. I thought of the word TAPER and just played it. Yellow A, yellow E, yellow R. Hitting on common letters. No, OK, whatever, rearrange them: RELAY. All three still yellow. Whatever the uncertain advance information was doing, it wasn't speeding me through the game. Shuffle the three letters again: AROSE. Green A, yellow R, green E, and now a green O. ADORE. Not the most admirable or lovable way for the game to go.
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